B.A.S.I.C. Newsletter #53

B.A.S.I.C. Newsletter #53July 1, 2005

I Cor. 16:9 For a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries. ————–

Series on Islam and Witnessing to Moslems II.

There are Muslims among many of you, whether it is East or West Africa or in India. The LCEA is working in Dares Salaam, Tanzania which has a high population of Muslims. In Nigeria a pastor has been sent to Bauchi to preach among the people, many of whom are Muslim. The second largest religious community in India is Islam. There will be many applications of what we study to our various situations when we meet Muslims.

In this series we will be considering: What Muslims Believe and Practice, Who do Muslims teach that we worship? Muslim Prayer, Reaching out to Muslim Women, Love (or the absence of it) in the Koran, What do they teach about Jesus’ death and resurrection?. I hope also that a couple of men who have worked among Muslims can give some reports. We will make some comparisons between our teachings and Islam.

Our goal in this is to alert each of us to witnessing to Muslims and praying for them. We do this in Christian love. It is interesting to note that Islam conquered with the sword so often and forced people to convert or die. after Mohammed’s death in 632 first it was the Arab and then the Turk who carried the sword for Islam. As a result there is a “Muslim Belt” of countries that have Muslims in large numbers that stretches from North Africa to Indonesia. The two major groups of Muslims are the Sunni with 85% and the Shiite with 14%.

Mohammed’s last wish was far from what our Lord said on the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Islam does not teach us to “love our enemies” as our Lord Jesus taught.

In 1900 throughout the world there were 558,056,300 Christians and 200,102,200 Muslims or 34.5% of the population and 12.4% of the population respectively. In 2000 there were 1,973,000,000 or 32.5% Christian and 1,279,000,000 or 21.1% Muslim. As you can see, we Christians have our work cut out for us.

Taken from Feb. 2003 Voice of the Martyrs, we have Mohammed’s last wish and his command to his followers, “which was to exile the Christians and Jews from the Arabian Peninsula…This also includes his quotations from the Koran: 1. To get rid of the secular governments and rulers who do not accept and apply Shariah Law (chapter 4:75), 2. To expose the hypocrites (chapter 9:73) ) Those who convert to Islam because of their fear of Muslims are not considered true Muslims.), 3. To purify those who are true in Islamic Faith and deprive of blessings those (non-Muslims) that resist the Faith (chapter 3:41). 4. To strike terror into (the heart of) the enemies of Allah and Muslims (chapter 8:18) ; and to punish non-Muslims at the hands of Muslims according to Allah’s command. ‘Fight them, and Allah will punish them by your hands and disgrace them, help you over them, heal the breasts of believers’. (chapter 9:14)

All the (Muslim) commentators agreed that Mohammed was encouraging his followers to go and practice jihad to take the other tribes’ money, land and women. Muslims feel that they do God a favor when they persecute Christians, force them to change their religion, or kill those who convert from Islam to Christianity, because this is obeying the words of Allah mentioned in the Koran. Jesus said, ‘Love your enemies’ (Matt. 5:44). The eternal victory reigning in heaven with Christ must be embraced with the eyes of faith. We must lovingly present Him as the only Door to all who are lost